He had come out, had failed, had suffered some very hard things, and now, at the age of thirty-five, enjoyed life thoroughly as a sergeant of the colonial police.
"You haven't got any thing against anybody here, I should think ?" said Joe.
"If you want to get them as begun it," said Jack, "and them as ought to be took up, you'll go to Gangoil." "Hold your tongue, Jack," said his brother.

"Sergeant Forrest knows where to go better than you can tell him." Then the sergeant asked a string of questions as to the nature of the fight; who had been hurt; and how badly had any body been hurt; and what other harm had been done.

The answers to all these questions were given with a fair amount of truth, except that the little circumstance of the origin of the fire was not explained.

Both Boscobel and Joe had seen the torch put down, but it could hardly have been expected that they should have been explicit as to such a detail as that.

Nor did they mention the names of either their brother George or Nokes.
"And who was there in the matter ?" asked the sergeant.
"There was young Heathcote, and a boy he has got there, and the two chaps as he calls boundary rulers, and Medlicot, the sugar fellow from the mill, and a chap of Medlicot's I never set eyes on before.
They must have expected something to be up, or Heathcote would not have been going about at night with a tribe of men like that." "And who were your party ?" "Well, there were just ourselves, four of us, for Georgie was here, and this fellow Boscobel.